Ocean updates served in stragglers, flocks, and set waves

Shackleton’s Hut at Cape Royds

First of all, thanks to all you faithful readers who have been checking out the posts at Polar Discovery and writing in with questions and encouragement. The pace has been somewhat grueling so far, with so much to learn and so much of my brain out of commission due to being shellshocked by all the scenery and penguins and so forth.

I’m not trying to gloat in this picture, but I thought since I had managed to get the camera pointed at both me and Ernest Shackleton’s 1908 hut at the same time, it would be kind of silly not to post it.

We camped with David Ainley and Jean Pennycook on a rise just out of sight to the upper left of this picture. Each morning we would file down past Shackleton’s hut and out to the penguin colony, which is only about 150 meters away in the direction I’m looking.

You might notice the bright yellow wood of the front door in this picture – that’s a new door, complete with padlock, that the Kiwis put on just this year when they finished renovating the place (a bit more on that here, if you haven’t seen it already).

Even with the knowledge that the place wasn’t exactly the same as it was when the last men left it in 1914, it was still a shivery feeling walking in and seeing the cots laid out, the old, rusting tools stowed on the shelves, and the stores of candles and table salt still stacked up against the wall. Old wool socks, incredibly long, almost waist high, and patched here and there with leather and long stitches with what looked like sail thread, and left looped to dry over a clothesline made it seem much closer than a century away. And I finally saw the famous reindeer-hide sleeping bags – big square things with not a stitch of fabric on them: just leather on the outside and fur on the inside. They had the design of a fuzzy slipper, with a hole at about chest level you climb in through, and big collars to wrap over yourself.

The color of the original wood is amazing, a cold gray with the grain exposed, ridged and pitted where it’s been sandblasted by storms slinging volcanic dust. I found strips of wood that had been ripped from the siding or roof – and even cast-off food tins, corroded and deep red-brown – and blown a half mile away or more, over three or four ridges, to settle in amongst the dirt. My last day at Royds, I got a small sample of that wind. It whistled out of the south and buffeted our tent. We hitched a ride back to McMurdo with some passing fish biologists (from Santa Cruz, it turned out) since the helicopters weren’t flying. The wind hit Cape Royds and funneled up the gullies, strengthening as the sides narrowed. Coming over the lip carrying a box of solar panels and headed down to the ice. I was stood straight up by the force of it, and had to lean out against the air just to get started going downhill.

Now I’m leaving for a week at Mt. Morning, sampling young (25,000 year old) lava flows with geologists. We’ll be posting to Polar Discovery by Iridium phone – follow me there…

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5 Responses

Out of deference to your conditions (wind,cold,stuff needing to be learned, excitement) and momentous circumstances( finding a can of pemmican half eaten, perhaps, by Shackleton) I have steered clear of communicating, fearful of cluttering up even the broadest of broadbands.

I see now though that tons of people are egging you on (as I certainly do) and so I’m going to add how desperately I wish I could come along with you.

My dad, you may not have the technological wits to post here, is absolutely chuffed that you’re there. He’s a big polar exploration fan.
Which means you have to swing by England on the way home (bit of a detour, I accept) and tell us all about it.

About the Scribbler

Hugh Powell is a little weary of big-ticket items like Pluto, the Mars rover, and small fossilized humans getting all the science news coverage. Keep an eye out here for wisps and scraps you won't find anywhere else. Particularly about the ocean, which is really cool and, honestly speaking, much bigger than you think.